whazzup with the name of this blog?

at the risk of attracting the wrong kind of blog readers, i have a secret: i have been living my life for the past several months obsessing over my urine.

actually, more specifically, i have been obsessing over the state of my uterus, which can be reflected in my urine, especially around day 17-18*, which is when this odd perseveration piques. because really, by day 16, it's all i can do to resist hooking myself up to an IV (cuz i actually know how, and have a few dealers around town for supplies n' such) so i can pee wildly on those expensive little litmus sticks. well not really wildly. just normally, like in a toilet. but many times per day, while holding a little plastic stick between my legs for exactly five seconds.

...that is, until i see those two little lines. pink ones, blue ones, faint ones, dark ones - whatever. they are all beautiful to me.

because those two gorgeous little lines, my friends, are how a 32 year old midwifery student, who is on-call 24/7 (save for four days per month) and thus has basal body temperature charts that are about as predictable of ovulation as they are of the weather; who refuses to take those crazy ovulation-regulating drugs that enable the fertility doc to pinpoint the nanosecond when her ovary births her little wonder-egg (or twelve of them); who has fallen in love with, and then married a wonderful woman who (very fortunately, but in terms of reproduction, unfortunately) does not have a penis or a ready supply of free sperm; who has wanted to carry a baby in her tummy since she was eight years old, and whose most compelling addiction (other than peeing on sticks) is cuddling any wee tot within 40 feet (with parental consent, of course - sheesh, you don't even know me and already you're making me out to be a pervert!!); who has managed to regulate her wonky luteal phase with months of naturopathic and homeopathic drops and pellets and remedies to enable her to even get to this joyful peeing-on-a-stick point; who is paying $1400 per month to some young stud in the US for the use of his super-swimmers...yes, those two little lines are how i know it's time to call the baby-docta for my monthly two-day extravaganza with the duck-lips.**

every month the very presence of those two little lines spell excitement. the pictures taken for pending baby books, the butterflies, the late night chats with M over hot chocolate, the pondering of names. the absence of booze in the hot chocolate (that part sucks). the worry. the anticipation. the calls from parents. and then the waiting, oh the waiting!

then, by the fourth month after unsuccessful tries, the stiffening of upper lips. the internal self-talk, constantly murmuring things like 'don't get too invested;' 'remember what happened last time;' 'it will only hurt in the end.' the avoidance of phone calls. the valiant attempts to be 'realistic.' the inability to concentrate on anything else. the physical ache of joy/pain when you hear that others are expecting. the guilt. the conviction that your body hates you and that the universe wants you to suffer.

because last week, i again came up empty. and i choose those words because it's how i feel - an absence. less than. subtracted, taken away, hollow. and no amount of heartfelt apologies, of warm hugs, of pitying glances, of rational suggestions, of reassurances that it is not my fault - none of it fills me up.
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so i am trying to write it out. process it, you know? because at this point, i'm having trouble putting a spin on it. i just want to be told how to fix it. i want to be told how to be full while that space in my pelvis remains vacant, and while my arms remain empty into the unseen future. i want to meet the bastard whose cruel joke is that my chosen profession is to be with women as they birth, while my own womb remains devoid of life.


and then, i want to collaborate with him so we can start our own line of greeting cards. cuz we could make some serious cash, yo.





* of my cycle. you know, that womanly one.
** a docta who, by the way, does not resemble any man i would typically let near my vagina, let alone into it.